


Power Grid

by goeskaboom



Series: Welcome Home [2]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012), Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Animal Sacrifice, Gen, Humor, M/M, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:37:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goeskaboom/pseuds/goeskaboom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pitch just wants to get electricity and water hooked up to his abandoned construction trailer.The  Night Vale Municipal Utilities Company doesn't want to make it easy on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Power Grid

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my power company.
> 
> Minor edits made 9.22.2013 to correct typos and fix borked formatting. Not really sure what happened, it was fine a few days ago...

Not exactly being human, Pitch Black did not necessarily need to eat or drink to survive. That did not mean, however, that he disliked having access to pure, clean water. Sometimes he just wanted to sip on a glass of nice cold water, or be able to take a long, hot bath. Or maybe he just wanted to be able to take a quick shower to freshen up. Just because he was the Boogeyman didn't mean he liked to be disgusting all the time, after all. While the hole in the ground he'd recently escaped from did not have running water, it did have easy access to an untapped groundwater aquifer. The existence of said aquifer was something he'd taken into special consideration when choosing the area for his lair in the first place, and after he'd been confined to it as a punishment it had its uses.

 

The abandoned construction trailer in the confusingly-named Waterfront District in Night Vale that he'd recently appropriated as his new home, however, did _not_ have running water. Not did it have easy access to an aquifer, or really, any water for that matter. While the location of the construction trailer was ostensibly the “waterfront district” there was a distinct lack of, well, _water_ at the waterfront. In fact, there was nothing for miles except for desert and a few random, scraggly cacti.

 

And while it wasn't a necessity and would probably end up being an annoyance to him more often than not, there were times when Pitch thought it might be nice to have electricity. Despite what people tended to think, Pitch would not melt, or explode, or spontaneously combust if he went out in the daytime or into a room that was illuminated. He wasn't a vampire- sunlight wouldn't kill him, or even really harm him in a measurable way. It just annoyed him. He had adapted to function best in the darkness. But he _could_ go into bright areas- there was technically nothing stopping him. Most of the time, however, he just preferred not to. And it really wasn't as though electricity couldn't be used for other things besides light, either. Humans used it to cook food, entertain themselves, keep warm, and a whole host of other things. And besides, Pitch kind of wanted to check out this new “Internet” thing he kept hearing about. He was pretty sure he needed electricity for that, though.

 

There was only one problem: while he technically knew how to connect a place up to the municipal utilities grid, he had to first know _where_ to do so. Which he didn't. In fact, he hadn't really seen any power lines, or transformers, or really anything of that nature at all. Clearly he needed more information before he could get his new home connected up.

 

While he probably could have done it on his own, Pitch was feeling a bit lazy, and given how strange things seemed to be in this town, if he tried to do it himself he'd probably just end up electrocuting himself or accidentally bringing inanimate objects to life or something. Fortunately, he knew of someone who would be able to help him.

 

* * *

 

 

 “You want to WHAT?!” Cecil practically shrieked, waving a tentacle around wildly. “No, nononononono... you can’t just do that! That’s a terrible idea! I don’t even know what would happen, because no one has ever been crazy enough to try it before!”

 

Pitch stared at the radio host, bemused. He’d waited outside the radio station for two hours for Cecil to emerge, then posed his question. He had expected the rather excitable, yet eager-to-help man to have a fairly straightforward answer to his query. He had _not_ expected for Cecil to flail around wildly while warning him of very vague, yet dire consequences.

 

“But how does everyone in this town get their plumbing and electricity then?” Pitch asked, once Cecil had calmed down enough to be coherent. “I know that it is possible- this radio station has both! How did you get it connected in the first place?”

 

“Oh, _that’s_ what you mean,” Cecil said, relief evident in his voice. Pitch dearly wanted to ask what Cecil had thought he meant, but chose to pursue the matter, as Cecil continued on. “Why didn’t you say so? Well, anyway, I’m going to assume that you’ve checked everything out already. Your trailer definitely can be connected to utilities, then?”

 

“Uh, yes,” Pitch replied. Cecil beamed.

 

“Good, good. Um, do you have a pure-white, spotless lamb? You need to make a sacrifice to the Night Vale Municipal Utilities Company to get the service, and they like spotless lambs the best. Although they’ll also take bulls, or chickens, or doves, or really any kind of animal, as long as it’s purebred and doesn’t have any visible problems. If that’s not possible, a treasured family heirloom will do, but then you’ll probably lose power at least once a week.”

 

“... sacrifice?” was all Pitch could think to say. Cecil looked at the Boogeyman curiously.

 

“Didn’t you have a utility company where you used to live?”

 

“No. My previous home was not connected to any... services,” was all Pitch could think to say in response. “And I’m fairly certain that even if it had been, no sacrifices would have been necessary.”

 

“Huh. Weird,” was Cecil’s response. “In that case, I guess you don’t have any of those things then.”

 

“No,” Pitch answered. Cecil sighed.

 

“Figures. Carlos didn’t have any sacrificial animals either when he came to town. I don’t think I have any extras, but I’ll check, and if I don’t I’m sure someone will have an extra crate of doves or something that they’ll be willing to sell.”

 

“I… are you sure that’s necessary?”

 

“You want water and power, don’t you?”

 

“So they don’t just take money?” Pitch asked, not sure why this was such a big sticking point for him. It just seemed so inconvenient, and as far as he knew, most normal segments of society would much prefer to have money than an animal sacrifice. Sacrifices, as far as he was concerned, were so messy, and you usually couldn’t buy anything with animal carcasses. But Cecil just shook his head, looking as though he thought Pitch was a bit dim.

 

“You can’t toss money into the reactor to power your house now, can you?” he replied, a little patronizingly. “Don’t you know anything about electricity?”

 

Pitch, in fact, did not know every much about electricity, but he was fairly sure that most of the time it did not involve tossing animal sacrifices into a nuclear reactor, at least in most of the rest of the world. But he already knew that Night Vale functioned differently from the rest of the world, so it probably wasn’t the best comparison to make.

 

Almost off-handedly, Cecil quickly checked his cell phone, then jumped up in a fright. “Oh my goodness, I’ve got to run! I’m meeting Carlos, the scientist- have you met him yet, by the way?- at Big Rico’s. I’ll come by your trailer later if I find anything, or if it’s too difficult to bring by I’ll just take it directly over to the power company then come by to let you know.”

 

“That isn’t…” Pitch started to say, but he never got to the final word. Cecil dashed off in the direction of the pizza parlor, leaving a very befuddled Boogeyman behind. But he eventually just shrugged his shoulders and headed back in the direction of his construction trailer. If Cecil was that determined to help him out, then who was he to complain? Clearly he didn’t understand how things worked in Night Vale. But Cecil did. Maybe it was best to let Cecil deal with this, since he was obviously more familiar with the town and its quirks.

Four hours later, there was a frantic knocking at his door. Pitch opened the door to a beaming Cecil, and a rather nervous-looking Hispanic man with curly hair. The second man kept shooting wary glances at a big, clucking box that was cradled in Cecil’s tentacles, and then shooting wary glances at Pitch himself. “Pitch, this is my boyfriend, Carlos! Carlos, this is Pitch Black! He’s new in town too!” Cecil introduced. Carlos approached and extended a hand, which Pitch shook.

 

“So you’re a transplant here too, huh?” Carlos asked.

 

“I suppose you could say that,” Pitch replied.

 

“Cecil says you don’t have power yet, that’s what you need these chickens for. He went and bought them from Old Woman Josie- said you would need them. I’m not sure why you need chickens to get your electricity turned on, but I guess it’s just one of those things. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not yet, but this town is… strange.”

 

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” Pitch said dryly. Carlos laughed.

 

“The whole reason I came to this town is to study its strange phenomena,” he said. “And I can tell you something- I’ve never seen a place as strange as this one- the data doesn’t add up at all! But hey, if you get the chance, feel free to let me know about anything you notice. It will be nice to get the perspective of another Night Vale outsider, since the people here don’t really notice anything out of the ordinary. Anyway, I’d better get going. Early day at the lab tomorrow. It was nice to meet you, Pitch.”

 

“Likewise.” Pitch said politely. Carlos turned, and perhaps, conscious of the audience, gave Cecil a hug and a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he told the other man.

 

“Bye Carlos!” Cecil chirped happily. Once the scientist was on his way back towards the rest of the town, Cecil indicated the (still clucking) box of chickens. “I forgot the power company closes at five,” he said apologetically. “But they open at seven in the morning. I’d take the chickens home with me, but my apartment doesn’t allow pets.”

 

“I think I can handle taking a box of chickens to the power company myself,” Pitch said, feeling a bit ridiculous that he’d just said that sentence in all seriousness. Cecil, in response, just bit his lower lip, worrying it between his abnormally-sharp teeth.

 

“If you’re sure, I suppose that would be alright. Do you know where the building is?”

 

Pitch then realized that he did not, in fact, know where the building was.

 

“Then I’ll just come by tomorrow before I head to the radio station. Try turning the lights on at 11:00 tomorrow morning. See you then!”

 

True to his word, Cecil turned up the next day around 9:00 AM and hustled off with the clucking box of chickens. At 11, just as he’d been instructed, Pitch flicked on a light switch. With an ominous sort of hum, it illuminated.

 

To be honest, he hadn’t really believed Cecil’s claims about the utility company until then, and if he thought too hard about it, the more unsettling it became. It took a lot to freak out the Boogeyman, but something about this whole town kept making him edge ever closer to the “freaked-out” state of being.

 

Or maybe it was just the lighting.

 

/END


End file.
